Jason (10) and his godbrother Derick (12) where playing in front of their house on an otherwise industrial stretch of Atlantic Avenue where they have been living with their mother for the last few years. While they were showing me their karate moves a rush of police cars came screaming by, headed a few blocks away where a woman was shot.

Derick told me that when he grows up he wants to be an NFL quarterback. Jason wants to be an artist; he spends his free time drawing Manga. Both insisted I come back and take pictures of them breaking boards with their bare hands, like “real karate masters.”

Shy, 46, born and raised in the projects of East New York, fell in love with pigeons when he was six. “I was always watching them. I got sent to a camp one summer and spent most of the time watching the birds.” In his late teens he got into drugs, dealing and smoking crack. It ended with eleven years in jail for manslaughter, the result of a deal gone bad. He was released in 99 and has been clean since. “Jail changed me. I saw guys in there who ain’t ever coming out. Ever.”

Now he does some odd construction jobs, spending most of his free time on the roof of an abandoned building where he keeps his birds. “I got no need for attitude anymore, thats all gone. I am just happy sitting up here tending to my birds. I aint got much else, but when I am up here I can be happy and hope something better comes the next day.”

When I asked him how he wanted to be described he said “Simple and humble. Didn’t used to be, and it landed me in lots of trouble. Now I am content.”

George, 85, lives in a small RV that he parks in the same two places on the block. He is always sitting in his chair on the sidewalk, listening to the radio. Despite being open and friendly he has turned down request for photos “Until I get my hair cut and stop looking like a criminal.” Well today I was lucky. From Honduras (“not been back in fifty years”) he worked all his life on freighters in the Caribbean and S America, as an engineer. Retired the last thirty years he spends his time “talking to all the good people and supporting any NY team.”

“I don’t mind being old, because when you get to be my age, whatever regrets you may have are hard to remember.”

It was close to a hundred today so the hydrants were open. These kids had laid a plank in front of the spout and where “street surfing”. That and trying to charge passing cars 75 cent for a wash. As a business man I suggested they aim for the paper money and charge a dollar.

Ty-Shawn, Jaquan, Nahjee, and Dallas (I wrote it down) jumped at the chance for a picture. Now I have to bring back four copies of this picture and a Barbados flag (Dallas), a copy of the picture with sparkles (Nahjee), fruit soda (Jaquan) and a toy gun (Ty-Shawn). Got it.